Thread regarding SAP layoffs

Some people here seem to either be new or living under a rock.

1. Badging has been used for at least 15 years in the US to manage desks. If your badge isn’t swiped x times/week, you lose your desk.

2. Clever on wrangling all your friends’ badges and helping them out. I would really like to see this work, but suspect cameras might make things more difficult.

3. Renjen is the adult in the room, unlike our beloved Wascally Wabbit who was groomed and selected based on things like allegiance to Hasso, familial political ties, etc. I’d be excited if good ol’ Elmer is pushed out (maybe he can sniff some glue on the way …).

4. Building on above, CK has done nothing positive for SAP or its people. He absolutely lies about what he stands for — look at his words versus his actions. Again, maybe Renjen was brought in to kick Mr. Wabbit to the curb.

5. Agree with comment that RTO policy is more impactful for US and other countries without protection of a Works Council.

6. Agree RTO policy is a soft and delayed layoff, but it does appear significant, near-term, larger than usual layoffs are coming. As stated elsewhere, it’s about the revenue:HC ratio. MBA 101.

7. Unfortunately, shareholders will probably like the layoffs. There might be a short share price dip, but it will recover.

8. Listen vewy, vewy closely to Wabbit when he talks about Q4/2023 on Jan. 2024. He’s going to emphasize “gwowth in cloud wevenue” without talking about target attainment, total revenue, or YoY total revenue. The reason — you guessed it — is because customers can’t buy OP licenses. It’s all smoke and mirrors, ticking the cloud box instead of the OP box. Look at previous SEC filings to verify this.

9. Shareholders will hear “gwowth in cloud wevenue” and get excited because they do not understand the financial transition of OP to subscription. They’ll buy the temporary dip and be happy when price returns to $160-ish even though there is little/no actual growth.

10. Higher pay grades will be more susceptible to layoffs. T4 and T5 directors and VPs will be cut in favor of low-cost new grads who are learning how to spell ‘SAP’.

These are lessons learned from 22 years at SAP. Naysayers can do their thing at their own peril.

What about wearing radiation shields?

Here's the original blog post of the (ex) Amazon employee in the article linked by @5xvl+1qwVvts3:
https://justingarrison.com/blog/2023-12-30-amazons-silent-sacking/

The similarities are pretty obvious.

https://www.thestreet.com/employment/amazon-has-allegedly-found-a-controversial-way-to-cut-its-workforce-in-silent

@3tgi+1qwVvts3 Wait. Just now? They’ve been handing out expensive hardware all this time without having anyway to track its location???? That’s crazy.

Global IT has started to push out location tracking software on laptops

Look closely at your updates

Badging will do nothing to enforce this. Everybody already knows we will just collect other peoples badges ( who will be WFH) and just swipe them thru..

Simple, Problem fixed.

But still for those unfortunate ones whose managers want to comply with this mandate, they will not be able to do this. But the rest can and will (assuming SAP would even start to enforce the RTO in this manner) ..... talk about "mistrust" this would be the monumental sc--w up of all time in SAP history.

I would have been more accepting of this if at the same time CK would have offered something to offset the RTO.

Specifically, why would he not have proposed a permanent 4 day work week? This is already being adopted at other companies and could have worked here.

He could have softened the blow by doing something like this. But I guess he got the words mixed up in our Human Capital Management documentation between "trust" and "mistrust" - once the trust ( flex pledge) is broken there is no fixing it.

Of course SAP is using badging. They have done this for a long time to determine facility needs etc. It‘s naive to think they wouldn’t use it for employee tracking. It’s time to realize that the SAP as many of us old timers know it no longer exists and that the culture has deteriorated under CK substantially.

100%, RTO will be all about the "haves' and "have nots". No doubt that there will be teams who continue to WFH with no interference from their management and there will be others who are held to the letter of the mandate and forced back into the office 3 days a week.

This has always been the SAP way.

I would imagine that Renjen will be looking at more than just where HC cuts could be made but I would also think he would be looking at the SAP Executive Board composition now in place.

It really is a bit insane for SAP to have 111,000 employees reporting into just 5 Executive Board members (of course excluding CK as no operational teams report directly to him).

Even if we had Executive Board members with decades of executive/Fortune 100 level experience, (which of course we do not) it would be hard to see how anyone could effectively manage an employee area base of 20,000+ employees across multiple continents.

I could see the restructure plan Renjen puts in place starting at the Executive Board and reframing the scope and size of these positions (and probably the individuals as well) and coming out with a much more accountable structure and downsizing the span of control of each executive level position.

If this is a lot to do about nothing and RTO will just come down to a roll of the dice and whether your own manager "chooses" to enforce this or not, then we will really have a severe case of low morale in the company, which is already pretty bad and just pit one team against the other.

The point is well made with the divergent backgrounds that there could be troubled waters ahead not only between Renjen and CK but also the rest of the Executive Board who are all very junior people to be running a Fortune 100 company and who have not held similar positions in the industry outside of SAP .

Renjen will be accountable for the performance of the company and unlike Hasso doesn't have 17B Euros to rely on.

I would see that sometime this year he will want to have his own team in place to drive his agenda

Even if SAP were to use Badging ( kinda of like how prisons are run) as a way to see who is in the office and who is not, ( which SAP would never do in a million years for many reasons such as: culture, Data Protection act, etc).. well then in such case we will all figure it out in short order and we just will take turns using our coworkers badges and running them thru the system to make it look like they are in the office

Actually…. I agree. I think it is all much ado about nothing. This site is overrun by mindless fear-mongering twats who are either too dense think rationally about what’s happening or are here to simply get people worked up. We need information. Not conjecture, panic, and empty rumors.

RTO is big news and go directly against the climate emergency narrative.

They can track if you’re in the office 3 days a week by your badge swipe. They’ve always been able to as that’s how they determine if you get a permanent desk or get to keep your permanent spot. Don’t be naive to think the tech giant can’t monitor when you are in the office.

I think RTO will be taken much more seriously by both employees and managers if Layoffs were to be implemented later in Q1. This might already be the plan anyway to get compliance and HC reduction.

I understand what you are saying and much of what you say is true, at least it was true for the SAP which has existed till today.

But you must keep in mind that SAP is entering a whole new phase of its life, with Renjen coming in. And I do agree with the other comments that these changes which will take place in Q1 are being pushed by him, including the comments from Works Council reps who have informed that SAP will have another layoff in Q1/24,

Renjen is not coming into this role as some sort of Chairman Emeritus, where he has held such a position in other companies for many years. But rather he comes here having just worked for Deloitte for the last 23 years of which the last 7 he was CEO.

This role is all new to him and how much of the reins he holds onto and what he allows CK and the other very junior Board Members to run independently will be the 64K question.

I see a strong possibility that there will be a clash between himself and CK as they come with totally differently backgrounds and experience levels. Renjen didn't become CEO until he was 56 years old and at Deloitte for 16 years where he was in Senior positions ( not preparing quarterly financial reports)

Check out the reviews on the employees regarding working at Deloitte, they are no where neat as favorable as SAP.

I am seeing someone who will drive a much different SAP than what we have been accustomed to and I think the changes will be difficult for many of us to accept.

I agree with you I think people are more upset because this RTO is more of a soft layoff to prepare for a hard layoff for NA.
NA colleagues have had enough of looming layoffs year after year, their key projects being transferred to German colleagues due to their immunity, and corrupt executives pocketing mine boggling amounts in bonuses